The data folder is in the images/panos folder, "haysGalleriadata" is in there sitting right beside it. When I double click the swf file from within Expression web pro 4, in the folder list, it works fine. When I run the web page what I get is the image above.

For the last week my patience has been worn very thin by an office junior in Tech Support. When you spend a bucket-full of money and the product fails, and you require the assistance of Tech Support you certainly do not appreciate being jerked from pillar to post or being treated like an idiot by an idiot. Or being told itâ€™s my fault, when clearly it is not. I certainly hope somebody figures out whatâ€™s going on here before too much longer. Itâ€™s gone on for long enough.

Motorised wrote:For the last week my patience has been worn very thin by an office junior in Tech Support. When you spend a bucket-full of money and the product fails, and you require the assistance of Tech Support you certainly do not appreciate being jerked from pillar to post or being treated like an idiot by an idiot. Or being told itâ€™s my fault, when clearly it is not. I certainly hope somebody figures out whatâ€™s going on here before too much longer. Itâ€™s gone on for long enough.

I recommend the forum as the first port of call when you have problems.

I may be mistaken, but as far as I am aware the first time you reported this issue to the forum was yesterday afternoon.

And it wasn't until this morning that you gave us the context in which you are working:

1. You are creating your own 'host' web page for the tour using the Microsoft Expression Web 4 web site authoring program. So it seems you are running some version of Windows - which version?

2. You are still testing by viewing offline which is when you see the problem you have described. You have not uploaded and tested online - is that correct?

............

Do you have a problem if you use one of the HTML template options to create a 'host' web page when building the tour and then viewing it locally via that HTML file, after having set the Flash security settings appropriately?:

Motorised wrote:For the last week my patience has been worn very thin by an office junior in Tech Support. When you spend a bucket-full of money and the product fails, and you require the assistance of Tech Support you certainly do not appreciate being jerked from pillar to post or being treated like an idiot by an idiot. Or being told itâ€™s my fault, when clearly it is not. I certainly hope somebody figures out whatâ€™s going on here before too much longer. Itâ€™s gone on for long enough.

No way to let you tell that ! The junior tech support you were quoting is the manager of the product as well as one of the developer of Panotour. So first, know the person who to are talking about. Secondly, in the many emails sent, you were never answering the right question. Moreover, we are making a software that creates a virtual tour, we don't a software that is like dreamweaver ( a generic html editor ). In this sens, every aspect of html coding and general web coding which is not part of panotour, is also not covered by support. Nevertheless, we did it but you didn't answer the right question.

BTW: If you don't know me, I'm the CEO and the lead developer on Autopano Pro / Giga.

The data folder is in the images/panos folder, "haysGalleriadata" is in there sitting right beside it. When I double click the swf file from within Expression web pro 4, in the folder list, it works fine. When I run the web page what I get is the image above.

What does the address bar in your browser show? does it contain the string "images/panos" ?If not, you have the haysGalleriadata in the wrong place.

â€¦which seems to work. Well at least it works in so much that it places the player on the web page.

From there onwards the user is completely reliant on the functionality built into the player by the manufacturer. Either you do get full functionality or you donâ€™t. As you can see from the image above, the *.swf is being placed on the page and as such so far so good. Whatâ€™s not working is the correct functionality and is not being displayed properly. Although this particular pano works perfectly well in every other instance, i.e.: windows explorer, from within Expression web, it even works if I burn it and run it from a cd. It just doesnâ€™t work in this instance, being called from a web page. It loads but the player screws up.

Personally I donâ€™t think it would make any difference whatsoever what html code you use to place the player on the page as its job is to do just that. Place the player on the page, period. But it depends on the functionality built into the player as to whether or not itâ€™s going to work as planned and offer full functionality. All of which is beyond the scope of the user and is the manufacturesâ€™ sole responsibility.

Which leads me to the conclusion: Object tag = Kolor â€¦ <iframe> google/youtube. Both which have their own proprietary functionality built right into the player. From there onwards it's completely beyond the scope of the user.

What I find particularly exasperating is the fact Kolor are perfectly willing to release buggy software on unsuspecting users, and when they complain theyâ€™re told itâ€™s their fault and that theyâ€™re doing something wrong. Part of the obfuscation involves running the customer ragged with a series of relentless questions that have absolutely no bearing on the subject whatsoever or have either no answer or are totally unanswerable. And then have the audacity to feign surprise when the customer quite rightly gets upset, angry and frustrated.

Alexandrej, if you treated your customers with respect and not the utter contempt you seem to prefer and insist on insulting their intelligence by insisting itâ€™s their fault your software doesnâ€™t work as planned, then youâ€™re going to have to expect some anger and frustration from your customers. Especially when you offer buggy software that doesnâ€™t even have the right to be released as a beta, let alone as a finished product.

I would suggest that in this case itâ€™s not the user thatâ€™s at fault but the software thatâ€™s got a bug and needs to be fixed. Look at the image above and tell me itâ€™s working perfectly and that the problem is not in the player, which incidentally is built by yourselves? If Adobe released software that clearly didnâ€™t work the whole world would be up in arms and Adobe would move heaven and earth to release a fix. How about you making an effort to fix this bug and stop putting the blame on the customer. Which is both deceitful and immoral.

When a customer has paid such an expensive price for a product, they have every right to expect a positive response from Technical Support or Customer Service.Not to be run ragged by a series of ridiculous questions that have absolutely no bearing on the problem and have either no answer, or are unanswerable.

And you wonder why I got upset?

If I had been told from the beginning : â€œThereâ€™s a bug in the software and weâ€™re working on itâ€ then there wouldnâ€™t have been any problem. I would have found other work to do and waited patiently, as I am now. But putting the blame on the customer and telling them itâ€™s their fault doesnâ€™t go down to well with anybody. If you insult peopleâ€™s intelligence all youâ€™re ever going to get is anger.

With that, I am prepared to offer a sincere apology for losing my rag.

What Iâ€™d like from you now is to offer a positive solution in an intelligible manner. For which I would be extremely grateful.

PS

Please do not tell me the problem is with the HTLM or that the data files are not in the same folder. It's not and they are.

Last edited by Motorised on Wed May 23, 2012 11:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

Motorised wrote:What I find particularly exasperating is the fact Kolor are perfectly willing to release buggy software on unsuspecting users, and when they complain theyâ€™re told itâ€™s their fault and that theyâ€™re doing something wrong.

Sorry - thatÂ´s complete nonsense. I donÂ´t know any other software where you get so much help by the developers as well as by the community. Maybe itÂ´s the kind of tone youÂ´re bringing in that sometimes itÂ´s not easy to stay friendly and obliging.

Motorised wrote:Part of the obfuscation involves running the customer ragged with a series of relentless questions that have absolutely no bearing on the subject whatsoever or have either no answer or are totally unanswerable. And then have the audacity to feign surprise when the customer quite rightly gets upset, angry and frustrated.

ThatÂ´s what i mean, you see . . . Your problem is: you donÂ´t understand answers because you donÂ´t understand the basics of panorama-photography and the rest well enough.YouÂ´re an absolute beginner who wants to realise somewhat challenging things. Panorama photography, stitching and making the pano interactive need some basic knowledge at least. You seem to not having this basic knowledge.

Motorised wrote:Alexandrej, if you treated your customers with respect and not the utter contempt you seem to prefer and insist on insulting their intelligence by insisting itâ€™s their fault your software doesnâ€™t work as planned, then youâ€™re going to have to expect some anger and frustration from your customers. Especially when you offer buggy software that doesnâ€™t even have the right to be released as a beta, let alone as a finished product.

To be honest: i sometimes am frustrated too. Alexandre each time helped me out - even wrote a little tutorial for a problem i had. ThatÂ´s because he - and the rest of the team - very well care about customers.YouÂ´re in the situation of a little kid who wants to run - but has to learn to walk first. I see thatÂ´s frustrating - but donÂ´t blame it to others.

Motorised wrote:I would suggest that in this case itâ€™s not the user thatâ€™s at fault but the software thatâ€™s got a bug and needs to be fixed.

This whole panorama stuff is developing very fast - each month there are new aspects. So youÂ´re in a situation of needing to learn to walk before you can run - and we all are in the situation to keep ourselves on track.

Motorised wrote:Look at the image above and tell me itâ€™s working perfectly and that the problem is not in the player, which incidentally is built by yourselves? If Adobe released software that clearly didnâ€™t work the whole world would be up in arms and Adobe would move heaven and earth to release a fix. How about you making an effort to fix this bug and stop putting the blame on the customer. Which is both deceitful and immoral.

Well - not really surprisingly the rest of us is able to work very well with what you claim to be not working . . . :cool:

That means Kolor as well as Adobe. Your problem definitely is not in the software . . .

Motorised wrote:Thank you Klaus, for your positive reply. Can you offer a solution? How about looking at the image above and telling me what the solution is?

YouÂ´re kidding - this image doesnÂ´t contain enough information at all. What i guess is that content is being missed or the administrative settings of a server restrict the use - who knows . . iÂ´m not a programmer.I use the file-structure shown in the image below - and it works as you can see on my site www.360impressions.de

best, Klaus

(the .kpt file doesnÂ´t belong there)

Last edited by klausesser on Wed May 23, 2012 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not using the <iframe> code. I tried it as an experiment to see if it would work. It doesn't so I gave up on it. I'm using the <object> tag as suggested by Kolor in their help pages on their web site. The <object> tag loads the *.swf in the web page Ok but then can't access it's own data files. Which are sitting right there beside it in its own data folder.

Let's assume this particular .*swf's Data folder is in the same folder as the .*swf file. And that the .*swf file has full access to its own Data folder. Why isn't it working?

How would i know? Ask a programmer who uses iFrames - i donÂ´t use iFrames. But some of my clients use it - works fine for them. My daughter (20) built a site using iFrames with panoramas - and itÂ´s working.

I suspect itÂ´s the upload (missing items), bad linking or some server-restrictions.

Klaus

P.S.: did you check the naming of the items? NO spaces and so?

Last edited by klausesser on Wed May 23, 2012 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Do you have a problem if you use one of the HTML template options to create a 'host' web page when building the tour and then viewing it locally via that HTML file, after having set the Flash security settings appropriately?:

1) The Flash security setting is not the problem. All necessary permissions have been granted.

2) There is no problem using the *.swf file locally. Double-click it works fine. No, no problem viewing it locally with the generated HTML file. It woks exactly the same as double clicking on the file in Windows Explorer. As regards using the self generated code: I've found it doesn't work. It's a red herring and it leads you down the garden path to nowhere. When I asked tech support about it they suggested I should ignore the self generated code and use the <object> code listed on the web site. So what's wrong with that? That works so why open a can of worms that's meaningless in the first place. If anybody can tell me the intended use for the self generated code in the html file, then I would be pleased to hear about it.

3) Windows 7 Home Premium. Fully updated via Windows Update.

4) Expression Web Pro 4 -- Local Server. And it's worked fine before without any problems. Except I have had exactly the same problem -- with the player not being able to find it's own data files - before and did at that time discover a workaround. For the life of me I can't remember how I did it now.

How about it AlexandreJ? How's about offering a solution? If anyone would know it would have to be you?

Rather than leaving us all stumbling around in the dark, doing ourselves immense damage by crashing into the walls and knocking ourselves out and having arguments nobody wants or needs .... not to mention all the animosity and ill feeling that now runs high in Tech Support and Customer Service. All of it totally unnecessary and regretful.

Last edited by Motorised on Wed May 23, 2012 2:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Motorised wrote:As regards using the self generated code: I've found it doesn't work. It's a red herring and it leads you down the garden path to nowhere. When I asked tech support about it they suggested I should ignore the self generated code use the <object> code listed on the web site. So what's wrong with that? That works so why open a can of worms that's meaningless in the first place. If anybody can tell me the intended use for the self generated code in the html file, then I would be pleased to hear about it.

The HTML file generated by Panotour Pro works just fine for me. I can open it with a browser and view the tour, either from local disk or after uploading to a web server. I am running Windows XP32-bit and a variety of browsers, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

When you say it doesn't work, what exactly do you mean?

The ability to generate an HTML page in PTP is provided as a working example that can be used 'as is' or to serve as a model for a customised web page. If you are generating both Flash and i-Device compatible tours then the generated web page invokes a script to load the approriate version depending on the value of the browser user-agent.

Did you check the address bar? if you won't do that, then try moving the haysGalleriadata to the directory level where you call the swf. That is, move it up two levels so /haysGalleriadata is on the same level as /images and see if that works.

The link above discusses the issues with iframes. YouTube may have made a decision to take over the browser. Kolor did not do that, and treats an iframe as it should be treated. That is, fullscreeen fills up the iframe. This gets into "what should an iframe do?" which is a question for W3C.

When I say the generated HTML file doesn't work, what I mean by that is that if you open it in a text editor and then try to copy and paste the code -- part of it, not all of it, just a relevant part -- to use it yourself, it doesn't work. I had thought about calling the html file and leaving it at that, but it does limit your design choices somewhat. I had a look at Klaus's code to see how he'd done it.

To avoid the design limitations of just calling the generated html file, I wanted to put the pano directly onto the web page. Hence the use of the <object> - and when that didn't work, I experimented with the <iframe> - tag. But as the Kolor generated *.swf file is proving to be unreliable, presumably a bug that needs a fix, when it can't find its own data files - look at the original image above and read the information contained within and it becomes apparent that it has an internal problem - and despite hankkarl's best efforts to convince me I haven't got a clue about file paths, considering I've been working with file paths since DOS in the early 90's I reckon I might have got the hang of it by now.

I can see I might have to go down the calling the generated html file route after all. Whether I like it or not. Unless I can get it to work. I did have the same problem quite some time ago and did at that time find a workaround to the bug. When I get a chance to sit and think about it again, maybe I'll come up with the workaround I used once before. Using the generated html file to call the swf, I must admit it is super reliable and does work well. Even though it limits design possibilities. I didn't want to spend the time on jQueryUI, now it looks as if I'll have to anyway. My penalty for trying to be lazy.

I can't help thinking that if Tech Support had been a little more helpful rather than running me ragged round the block a few times, we'd all be in a much happier place now. A disgraceful situation considering the money we have to pay for their products.

Last edited by Motorised on Thu May 24, 2012 8:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

Motorised wrote:I can't help thinking that if Tech Support had been a little more helpful rather than running me ragged round the block a few times, we'd all be in a much happier place now. A disgraceful situation considering the money we have to pay for their products.

To be honest: the amount of vital information you provide is very low! YouÂ´re constantly telling about "bugs" in the software: others would have realized the bug too - nobody did.We have a saying here: "the bug sometimes sits in the font of the display" . . :cool:

I donÂ´t know the amount of information you provided to the Kolor team - but what you provide to us in the forum seems rather little and somewhat confuse.

I guess the only way might be - as Yann already asked for - that you provide ALL of your code for checking.

OK so I've skim read this thread but thought I'd jump in with my 2-cents <update I've just re-read in a little more detail and see you are trying to directly embed on a page, that's not what brought up my errors below but since I've typed out all this post I'm going to stick it up anyway just in case the swf is getting access denied because of file permissions or owners>

I had the exact same errors come up recently with repeated ERROR download of <file.jpg> failed.

I checked my webserver error logs and saw lots of permission denied requests for all the tile, very strange since I've been using PTP perfectly for the last few years and not changed my workflow.

At first I suspected a PTP bug but a little more debugging and I found that the FTP program I normally used (Captain FTP for OS X) had an update and was changing the file permissions on the uploaded images so they were not accessible by all. I compared image and folder permissions with a tour that was working and the permissions were different. I tried uploading with a different FTP programs (Forklift for OS X) and the same problem. As a last resort I tried a 3rd FTP programs (Flow for OS X) and that uploaded folders and files with the correct (default) permissions for jpgs/pngs etc and it worked.

I know you are testing on a local environment and my problem/solution may be of no assistance but thought I'd put it out there. If you try to access http://127.0.0.1/haysGalleriadata/haysgalleria0/preview.png replacing 127.0.0.1 with whatever you have setup for you local server, does it load the preview.png image on its own in the browser? If it doesn't, what are your server error logs showing?

Since you are only testing locally and not live, if you CHMOD 777 the root folder for the tour along with all enclosed items and then retry, what happens? Obviously 777 isn't safe for a live tour but worth seeing if it is a simple permissions issue?

Oh and also, I've had similar problems when I've been locally testing on my Mac Mini Server (Lion Server OS X) and this again was due to FTP/transfer of files onto my server. For some reason they had the wrong 'owner' attribute and aftering a CHOWN -R of the tour folder to _www or whatever it was my apache wanted it worked.

Good luck.

Scoopz

PS - I'd be happy to host and test your tour for you on my dedicated server if would like a 2nd opinion.

Last edited by scoopz on Thu May 24, 2012 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Some useful tool oftenly used to debug local websites is python SimpleHTTPServer module. To use it, you only need to install python (please visit http://www.python.org/download/). You can use this trick on Windows, MacOS and Linux as python is running on all these platforms.

Once python is installed, open a terminal and browse to your directory containing the website. There simply execute the following command